Organization & Structure of a German Infantry Division in World War 2
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
- Patreon: / mhv
The organization and structure of a German infantry division. This video includes a description of the various regiments, battalions and companies. The video covers both combat units and support units.
Main Source
Buchner, Alex: Das Handbuch der deutschen Infanterie 1939-1945; Gliederung - Uniformen, Bewaffnung - Ausrüstung, Einsätze
Buchner, Alex: The German Infantry Handbook 1939-1945
Additional Sources
Mitcham, Samuel W. Jr.: German Order of Battle - Volume One: 1st - 290t Infantry Divisions in WWII
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glieder...
www.niehorster.org/011_germany...
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truppen...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachm...
www.feldgrau.com/org.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abteilung
defence.pk/threads/battle-repo...
www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn...
www.boundless.com/management/...
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hensche...
Credits
Design of the unit counters is heavily inspired by Black ICE Mod (the definitive Hearts of Iron 3 Mod)
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...
![[USMC] Structure United States Marine Corps Division in 1944 (F-100 Series)](/img/n.gif)
"sir we can not repair the horse sir" commander "scrap the horse use the spare parts for other broken horses!"
delicious :)
to the butcher platoon !
Instablaster
Seriously that’s how I felt watching War Horse - there are some beautiful memorials now for the millions of horses that died (England has an especially gorgeous memorial)
"And we had a baker company. They made bread...and lots of it. And a butcher company. They butchered pigs, cows, and sheeps and made sausage out of them." Fine German cuisine right there!
That is actually very true.
".... no man, not my german cuisine... it's your mum .. or your english scottish Hotpants wearing brother... who is your sister, at the same time... you should know it ... you still throw it my määääään ... yeeeeah. That's your Monday you trans chance... get it right my määä
They butchered what they stolen from invaded villagers
Division organization is something quite dense and difficult to convey without sounding extremely boring, but you managed the opposite. Those 10 minutes went flying. Keep up the good work!
+Richardsen thank you! This was actually my first attempt, I think the newer ones are quite better, although less detailed. Hopefully, I will have enough time in the future to achieve both: depth, detail and strong visualization. here is one for a German Panzer Division ua-cam.com/video/rk-T-iNSdaw/v-deo.html
Military History Visualized
Keep up the good work! And the subscriber counts is reflecting it, by the way. Between my original comment and this response you gaine 200 new subscribers.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualizedhi there, I really like this video as Im also a WWII enthusiast. I have a question, do you know, for this type of division, did they settle in one big fort/base? Or each regiments/battalion spread across vast area and have their own base/fort? Thank you
Funny that videogames never show off horses in WW2 portrayals.
Steve J it was 3 million with 800k axis troops I believe
@@maximilianodelrio 3 million German soldiers and 800,000 other Axis personnel*
Germany was apart of the Axis. No reason to seperate them at all.
Honestly, neither do they in most video games. The reason being a matter of computing power more than anything. No reason to use up precious disk space portraying something that has no affect on gameplay whatsoever. I have played for Verdun for 80+ hours and there isn't a single horse in that game that isn't dead.
Wisemankugel Memicus yeah that’s what I meant
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701 Depends on the game, where the fun is, what the objective is, etc. Different games are different, even in the same setting.
Eg. The Western Front is a game about managing an entire division, and planning an attack.
Don't discount dev creativity is all I'm saying.
wow! This has to be one of the best new channels iv ever seen one youtube, CGPGray lever great. Thanks very much hope you makes more!
+Nirvana o.O thank you very much!
Thanks for the efforts MHV. I hope eventually we will have a video for the organization of each division type of each of the major (and hopefully later minor) nations in the war
I didn't know there were sooooo many horses in a Infanteriedivision.
and can you believe they had veterinarians holy shit
Sir, we don't know where the Germans went. Follow the horse shit!
Remember That the video is talking about the beginning of the war. Maybe they had less horses at the end. (Because they probably ate them in Stalingrad
@@skydiver_fr6507 you said it perfectly, or because the German Army lost so many men that it didn't need that much mech
Was just playing hearts of iron 3 today. I never realized that the counters were standardized.
+Matt Bernabeu I guess it was necessary, because if I take a look at German counters I go "what?" and now imagine some NATO members looking at all their different counters, they would probably spend more time spending figuring out their different counters than anything else. Here an example for German counters of an infantry division. www.niehorster.org/011_germany/39_organ_army/39_id-1_welle.html
+Military History Visualized Looks like a bloody differential equasion...
This is a great video, mate! Cheers!
+oberstul thank you! Working on the Panzer Division right now.
Outstanding video! Great job. Definitely subscribed!
+Connor Zunft thank you very much, tomorrow you can watch one for a tank division although with a different format, let me know which format you prefer.
Nice video man! Sehr gut!
+- Blank Empty thank you! Danke!
First, this is one of the best attempts at explaining the full make-up of a division that I've ever seen, for which thanks. As a true nerd who likes numbers to add up tidily, however, there's still something I can't quite get my head round. At 2:00 you state that a division consists of three regiments of 3,000 men each, plus artillery (2,900 men), anti-tank units (550), signals (470), recon (600) and engineers (500). Add in supply, transport and medical units (which, per this video, total 1,700 men), and you get a total of 15,720 men. Allowing for HQ and staff, this gets us somewhere near the total of 17,000 which you state at the beginning. Well and good (though the absence of anti-aircraft units is a surprise). However.... at 2:38 you break down a regiment as three battalions of 850 men each, plus artillery (180), anti-tank (150), signals (30), recon (40) and engineers (70) for a total of 3,020 men. This agrees with the earlier figure. Then you go on to break down the make-up of the artillery regiment and so on. But..... my inner nerd screams at me at this point. I understand completely why artillery units etc are attached to regiments, but if (per 2:38) you include them in the regimental total of 3,000 men AND (per 2:00) add them separately in the calculation of the total divisional manpower calculation, then there are a LOT of artillerymen, signallers, engineers etc who are being counted twice. Or am I missing something?
well, this was ages ago, maybe I made an error. I used one source and tried to get as good data as possible for every unit, but I also did quite some rounding. Also I left out certain supply units, if I remember correctly.
Very good.
Thank you.
awesome vids! keep it up
+xardas110 thank you, already editing the next one.
7:00 German units don't move without fresh bread daily. One of the pleasant parts of REFORGER was getting to partner up with the Bundesheer and getting a fresh loaf with every einmannpackung.
Good stuff. Thanks.
I am amazed the Blitzkrieg worked as well as it did wit this little motorization. Great videos, thanks.
Spear: iron head, but wooden stick. thank you!
Great work
+GE GHA thank you!
Regarding Field Hospital. In North Africa, occasionally as the battle moved across the desert,
Sometimes the doctors would be allowed to continue their medical work in treating the wounded of both sides
I love that you state your sources and also disclose that the amazon links are affiliate!
Could video, thank you very much.
Would the degree of motorisation have varied a lot, i.e. would some infantry divisions rely more on horses than others?
thank you! Only have a limited information, but as far as I know the motorization to a certain degree actually decreased during the war and later on there were special static defense division they so called "bodenständige Divisionen" which had almost no motorization. Also quite many division used captured vehicles or used civilian grade vehicles.
Could you make a video about the unit sizes above the division and tell how an army organization changed since 1939?
excellent video, thumbs up from me
Tolle videos! Kannst Du bitte einen machen über die Aufgaben des schweren Artilleriebatallions und der leichten Artilleriebatallionen in den divisionen. Aufgabenverteilung ist mir nämlich noch nicht ganz klar. Danke.
Abonniert und geliked!!!
Hi sir, great video! Do you have any suggestions on where I could learn more info on specific German infantry regiments? I can only find info on divisions, thanks!
Will you be making a video of late organization and structure?
I notice you have gotten better and better at making videos, are you some day going to remake this video?
+TheRomanRuler thx, probably not, have way too much stuff to cover, also I haven't settled yet on a definitive format for organization and structure. The chances of doing a video on a 1944 Inf Div is way higher and also a lot of other countries aren't covered yet.
You should do another video showing a late war infantry division.
How are the signal units deployed in the division? Wouldn't each sub unit require it's own communications? Trying to get a sense of how signal units are used as cohesive units
DANKE.
hi there, I really like this video as Im also a WWII enthusiast. I have a question, do you know, for this type of division, did they settle in one big fort/base? Or each regiments/battalion spread across vast area and have their own base/fort? Thank you
I'd love to see a modern German Army composition video.
That would be difficult as sanctions were placed on German Military possibilities at the end of WWII
that's easy - lot of deserters and only about 1/5 of equipment working :D
Francis Dunne
That‘s not true.
The modern german army, just like any major military power of the west, is much more flexible today. Units of almost all sizes can be taken out of their organisational chain of command and placed into operational task forces, often multi-national, according to the mission. (For example, german CBRN-defense troops guarded civilian infrastructure during Enduring Freedom.)
As a quick overview, though, the german army consists of two panzer divisions and a rapid forces division (plus support like cyber sec, medical, logistics, etc.). Each of the panzer divisions consist of four brigades, one of which is multi-national (one german and dutch, one german and french), plus two support battalions (either two artillery or one artillery and one "operational support"), a signalling company and a company of engineers (one of them "heavy" engineers). On brigade level the organisation is a bit more varied depending on what kind of brigade you're talking about - there are panzer brigades (basically just two panzer- and two panzergrenadier-battalions plus a motorized recon battalion and engineers), there are Gebirgsjäger brigades (basically the same but on foot and pack animals instead of motorized and mechanized, trained for alpine warfare) and there are mixed brigades like e.g. the 21st Panzer Brigade, which consists of only one panzer- and one panzergrenadier-battalion combined with two mechanised Jäger battalions (plus engineers, recon and support).
So, the doctrine of every brigade being able to be self-sufficient is still there, but units are trained in a way to make it more easy to detach single companies or even platoons, if needed, and place them into an "ad-hoc" command structure for missions.
Is it possible to get a video comparing German small arms and other handheld weapons to those of the allies?
Great!
+MARCOS FREIRE thank you!
Great content and channel. Only critique I can give is a bit more excitment in your voice would go a long way. Keep up the good work
how do you make the images with the structure for the units?
Do you think you might cover a Corps organization (or maybe a few examples of Corps structure)? There's nothing really good on YT about that.
Albeit somewhat late.. but you missed a breakdown of the divisional HQ unit. Probably not a major game changer in terms of capacity, but this this would have a command staff section (for different sub-units & liaison with corps), security detachment etc. Often the engineer battalion provided additional security as well. Good work though 👍
Great video btw. And one question. The anti tank company in regiment is attached to the anti tank battalion in the division, right ? Or are they independent?
No and no, attached to the Regiment. Independent would be not attached at all.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Hmm, I actually mean that by 'in regiment:
i have a question , where are you found there informations ? what are your sources?
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!!
This is an organizational Michelangelo!
Your terms are misleading though.
The difference (in contemporary military doctrine/understanding etc...) is that a Brigade IS IN FACT a regiment of some combat type (infantry, tank, reconnaissance etc...) except in has attached to it, all of the necessary support and combat-support units to operate autonomously. This this why a Brigade is often called a “Brigade Combat Team”.
The use of the term “regiment” (although both are commanded by a full colonel) consists exclusively of the core or “line” units.
The debate has always been where to assign the primary support elements?
This who will be making the key tactical decisions?
Today in the US Army we have 48 or 46 BCTs total. So it’s the colonels, at the brigade level for us.
Until the end of the Cold War it was the ⭐️⭐️ Major-General who commanded the division (divisional combat teams) which still exists in the marine corps.
But here we see both!!
The divisional combat team is deploying independent brigade combat teams with the General still processing his own reserves for help later.
So the Sanitätsdienste had two companies, one motorized, that weren‘t attached to the field hospital or the ambulances. What were they doing the whole time? Where there like smaller medical stations closer to the front line or were they distributed among the fighting forces somehow?
关于德军二战初期师级编织里的反坦克炮Pak36因该是36门，不是72门。
德军编织里没有旅(Brigade)这个单位。一个师(Division)有约1万7千人。其组成包括三个步兵团(Regiment)一个炮兵团和一个反坦克炮营(Battalion)(战防炮)等。一个反坦克炮营含三个反坦克炮连(Company)。二战初期每个反坦克炮连是12门37毫米Pak36.
同样的构架可以搬到师所拥有那一个炮兵团上，它包含3个轻型野战炮营，每个营是12门105毫米榴弹炮。和一个重野战炮营12门150毫米榴弹炮。
Hi, how the pzb 39 were used? In paltoon or higher level?
6:40 - Would be funny if they did take command from a regiment.
Suddenly, the major general is like, "Where'd my supplies go?"
"They walked off with one of the regiments, sir."
"Das fucht! Why didn't we plan for this?!"
I have a artillery nco uniform thats says fahrer(driver), named "markert franz" and unit 1st Batterie Artillery regiment 17. If anyone can find information on this man that would be amazing.
This might be a strange question to ask all this time on but do you know of any good sources on German Garrison forces?
My German is Ziemlich Gutt but I might need to translate for good information, and ideally a general template if that was good or specifically 1944 Channel Islands.
Not really, yet, I suspect that Neils Henkemans probably knows something: twitter.com/Niels_1944
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Vielen Dank, I'll check Neils Henkemans out.
Would the reason that medical units for transporting wounded to hospitals (240 men) are separate from those other 350 men in two companies be that the former are for more serious cases?
At the Division echelon we see the Regiment of Artillery and then Battalions of Antitank, Signal, Recon and Engineer.
We also see smaller units within the Infantry Regiment Echelon.
Are the larger units seen in the Division Echelon divided up and then distributed amongst the Infantry Regiments as Companys and Platoons (to the compliment shown under the Infantry Regiment Echelon) ?
*Or* are there larger units such as the Battalion of Antitank *and then seperate from that* smaller independent subunits such as the Company of Antitank shown under the Regiment echelon?
If both then what is their relationship? - for example, is the company of support guns in the 1st Infantry Regiment a completely independant Artillery sub-unit attached to the Regiment? Or does it belong, administratively, to the division's Artillery Regiment? Or are they not considered to be part of an artillery unit at all despite being equipped with what we would call artillery and just considered part of the Infantry Regiment ie. no artillery cap badge etc.
I ask because, for example, in the modern British Army, not everyone trained in signals is in the Signal Corps - the signalers in say, an Engineer Squadron are just Engineers in that Squadrons HQ element and are not attached from a Signal Corps parent unit. Similarly, the Pioneer Platoon in an Infantry Battalion aren't attached from the Corps of Royal Engineers - they're just organic infantry from that Battalion that have been trained as Assault Pioneers (for less complex engineering tasks), they belong permanently to that Battalion and have that Battalions cap badge ie. they are "Privates", not "Sappers".
Much closer to the second section. Divisional units belong to the division but are of course parcel'd out when/where necessary. As he stated, an infantry regiment had to be self sufficient and thus any units beneath it belong directly to it.
I'm not certain about uniforms or waffenfarbe colors though.
This puzzled ne for a long while, but I think I've worked out part of the answer. At battalion level, Infantry Guns are mentioned. The Germans fielded (for example) the IG 75, which was a 75mm howitzer with what appears at first glance to be a comically short barrel. These (if I've understood correctly) were embedded within infantry formations, meaning they were available if fire support was needed RIGHT NOW. They were also small and light enough to be manhandled into position by two or three men - important when there was so little motor transport available. The heavier howitzers - the 105mm and 150mm guns mentioned - were Division-level assets. Similarly, the anti-tank guns at battalion or brigade level were likely 37mm PAK 36s. Again, small and light enough to be useful (though they were phased out when it became clear that they simply weren't powerful enough - their role was then filled by the Panzerfaust). The Division level anti-tank weapon was more likely to be the 50mm PAK 38. How Engineer and signal units were split up. however, I'm less certain about. As I say, this how I interpret this video - though I may be wrong.
I assume this was a 1st welle (wave) division. How many vehicles did it have in total and was even this limited level of motorisation achieved? To what extent did the Luftwaffe control the AA guns - no AA guns are mentioned but I think the artillery regiment had some. How long did the recce troops keep their horses? Great video!
yeah, 1. Welle. 530 motorcycles, 394 cars, 536 trucks. As far as I know the motorization was achieved, but drop considerably later on, but for other waves, it is hard to tell. Yeah, no AA guns in this setup, they used MG34 for that. About the Luftwaffe AA I need to do some reading. About the horses and recce units: no clue sorry.
thank you! This video is btw. quite old, the newer ones are usually a bit less detailed but all around better.
Thanks, I checked, there were some integral AA guns, but not before 1941. Before then all AA guns were in Luftwaffe units it seems.
What about the Heavy Weapons Companies, my understanding is that in every Infantry Regiment there was a Heavy Weapons Battalion, which means one Heavy Weapon company per Infantry Battalion or one Heavy Weapon Platoon per Infantry Company. What was in a Heavy Weapon Platoon? Was there a difference between a 1939-1940 Heavy Weapon Platoon and say a 1943-1945 Heavy Weapon Platoon, please advise, Thankyou in advance.
What rank would command a german infanterie division? Like what was the name of the rank in german and the english equivalent
By default, the German equivalent of two star major generals, generalleutnants usually led divisions (if a "lieutenant-general" commanding a division confuses you, just remember that the Germans got a rank with the word "brigade" in it after WW2. England also used to do this, but they flip-flopped between brigadier/no brigadier; Lt.-Gen. Hon. Sir G.L. Cole was absent from Waterloo, but he was supposed to command the British 6th Division). However, it was not uncommon for Generalmajors to lead divisions, as the Germans had largely discontinued the usage of brigades after WW1 (at least in the infantry), thus compelling the one-star generals to be posted higher.
Since the introduction of the rank of Brigadegeneral at the formation of the Bundeswehr, generalmajor is now the default rank for division commanders.
Pionierbattailon! Abteilungen gab's nur bei der Artillerie, Aufklärung, Kavallerie und Panzertruppe
+D Izzy jo, war wohl ein copy paste fehler von einer Folie zur nächsten.
HOI4 Players:
Write that down! Write that down!
Did they have anti air units?
Do this for ww1 please
can you give entire army structure
Do you have any numbers as to how many AT guns or Infantry Support Guns a Infanterieregiment would have in it's units?
To clairfy, I'd assume 12 AT guns, if the AT company attached to an infantry regiment was the same size as an AT company attached to the regular Anti-Tank battalion, yes?
9-12 AT guns AFAIK, the lower number is for 50mm (and later 75mm) guns.
The Support Gun cpy usually had 6 - 75mm and 2 - 150mm infantry guns.
what are the boxes?
I have some interesting questions for you.
So did German infantry use anti tank rifles in 1939? If so, how many and how were they distributed in the units?
Also were the reserve divisions of western front (1939) equipped with 36 105mm and 12 150mm howitzers?
I have once read that Germany had about 2000 150 mm howitzers at the start of the war. If Germany had just over 100 divisions at the start that works out at less than 1200 150 mm howitzers (armoured divisions had 8 of such howitzers if I can remember correctly). So is the 2000 figure wrong or did Germany have extra stocks/extra guns at corps level?
+thepilotofpoland So, back from the library. The early anti tank rifles were the so-called "Panzerbüchse 38 & 39" as the numbers indicate, they were just introduced, so very few of them saw action in 1939. My sources are scarce on that one. But for an Infantry Division in 1940, as an example the 9th around April 1940, Alex Buchner lists 90 anti tank rifles referring to the "Kriegsausrüstungsnachweis" (KAN) ("War Equipment Inventory") which is usually the ideal number not necessarily the real one. He also mentions that they were mostly useless even in the early stages of the war.
about the reserve divisions on the Western Front (1939), I don't have any information available, sorry.
I know for sure that there was artillery at corps level, especially the higher calibers, but I don't have any inventory numbers. Wikipedia lists around 1300 guns at the outbreak of the war and a peak with about 2200 guns in 1944. Since Germany was almost all of the time short on equipment, I would guess that those numbers are closer to the actual numbers than the number of 2000 at the outbreak of the war.
+Military History
Thank you for the answer.
"He also mentions that they were mostly useless even in the early stages of the war."
Makes sense, most of Polish armoured troops were assigned to useless reconnaissance companies attached to infantry divisions or cavalry brigades. I wouldn't think there would be too many cases where German infantry came under pressure from such units where they would really make use of these weapons.
+thepilotofpoland you are welcome. He meant useless in the way of not enough armor penetration.
but they could penetrate the thin armour of light tanks and armoured cars - problem then was the small calibre didn't do much damage unless it was a lucky shot. by 1941 the german guns were converted to grenade throwers but the Russians kept using theirs right through the war.
The German ATRs were just that, heavy or (overly) high powered rifles, incidentally based upon their original TUF from late WWI firing a 13mm x 92mm round which AIUI led to the Browning 50 12.7mm x 99mm, where as the Russian ATRs were bigger calibre 14.3mm ATWs - anti-material weapons, they still use them today...
question: are the 15cm howitzers in the artillery unit SiG 33? or did they just use anything of that calibre?
+Griesbrei AUT I doubt that, because the sIG 33 is an infantry gun, whereas the artillery units used (according to my sources) the sFH 18.
+Military History thx, i was just wondering in which unit those guns would have served.
+Griesbrei AUT in the "Infanteriegeschützkompanie" or "infantry gun company" (I think the English term usually is "heavy weapons company") every Regiment had one of those companies, each had 6 light infantry guns with 75mm and 2 heavy guns with 150mm. Example Division: 9th Infantry Division, April 1940.
+Military History where those SiG33 in the infantry regiment allways towed or did they get the versions mounted on tanks too?
+Griesbrei AUT there was a self-propelled "version", well they basically put the whole gun with wheels on a Panzer I (or Panzer II; not sure) chassis and added some metal sheets, but I don't think it was used in normal infantry division, probably in motorized infantry divisions, mechanized (Panzergrenadier) and Panzer Divisions.
So you're telling me, when I use a 9-1 infantry division in hoi4, that that's pretty historical? Nice xD
First. Good presentation on a 1939-42 Infantry Division although you should cover the Infantry Gun and Pioneer Companies in the Regiments. I must assume you will do a video on the 1943 changes and the Volksgrenadier Divisions? I also decided my German is absolutely horrible. Good to hear how the German terms are actually pronounced.
thank you, that was my first organization video, pretty bad actually by my current standards. Probably at some point I will cover smaller units, I did cover an US Army Anti-Tank Company. Yeah, there will be videos for later divisions too. The video on the Panzergrenadier /Motorized Division is probably the most interesting for you, 1940 vs 1944.
Useful. Do you have information on specific German divisions?
nope, I prefer dealing with general stuff as much as possible.
How effective were light machine guns against air attacks? Why didn't they use dedicated AA guns to defend the artillery?
1) I have no data on the first question, but I would guess they would have been only effective against older planes, but in that case the Luftwaffe usually already had achieved air superiority. 2) I would assume cost/lack of equipment.
I will try to keep your questions in mind when I take a look at the Division setup of the 1944 division and if those MGs were replaced or removed, which would allow a better guess at 1).
Why regiments have only company of support guns and platoons of signaling, recon and engineering ? What happened to 2 battalions of support guns and 2 companies of each signaling, recon and engineering. ?
I'm not sure what you're asking, but the Infantry support gun cpy was not part of the Division's Art Regiment. Infantry guns and Field artillery are quite different beasts, compare for example the 15cm sIG 33 with the 15cm sFH 18. The latter has ~3 times the range (and weight). Different weapons for different purposes.
Neither were the signals, recon, etc part of their divisional equivalents. They are integral to the Infantry Regiment. The Division needed it's own units.
Thank you for the video.
And then, why not to tell about the battalion and it`s tactics? Your video about the US army infantry battalion structure and tactics was brilliant. I`d like to learn the same about german ones.
you are welcome. this video was done way earlier, I will do a video about German tactics, but in a different video.
Military History Visualized that`s very strange that your channel has such a small number of viewers. The information you provide is critical for the understanding the aspects of war and combat. That`s a shame that only few people value the importancy of things like structure and tactics. The misunderstanding always leads to terrible misconceptions about war. I`d even make a review of the factions`
structure, politiacally-social system, strength, international relatiionships and goals during WW2. Because, you know, people tend to think that it was some kind of a holy war between extremely evil nazies, glorious Allies and great bloody soviet empire. That also turns into something WORSE when people try to estimate millitary matters using their stereotypical nazie / allies / soviet impression.
0:41 What about the Brigade?
largely did not exist in the German Army at this time
Are modern infantry divisions typically much smaller, like about 10,000 or so?
Modern Infantry divisions are typically for a command structure only, like a corps was to divisions back than. Now days Brigades (Regiments don't often exist in most armies unless we are talking about Royal Australian Regiments or British Regiments which is a fancy way of saying brigade) are often independent forces I.E. they act like Divisions did back in ww2. Assets (I.E. Artillery, ATGMs, IFVs, APCs) are often divided up into Companies or Platoons inside the Brigade itself, depending on the Brigade, and attached where needed.
+Liam Is this a result of greater mobility?
Where are the Heavy companies, i.e HMGs and mortars, apologies for lack of knowledge but my Opa was in the 208th ID from late 1943 and later the Scharnhorst Div until April 1945 and by the end of the war was a Fahnenjunker Unteroffizier in charge of a Heavy Company platoon according to the records i inherited and what he told me before he passed....
I'd like to see an "Organization & Structure" video for 1st Lt. Rommel's Alpenkorps.
Hmm very interesting i need to set this setup to Hoi4
I have a special video for hoi 4 on infantry divisions.
+Military History Visualized okay i go chech it up
+Nish 3000 check *
lol amazing the difference with modern divisions, an entire division of 17,000 men having just 4 armoured vehicles in total (in the recon batallion).
Can you do this for Russian Divisions as well?
I'm trying to follow this and I'm so confused.
Artillery company with infantry regiment;Artillery regiment with infantry division
Is Panzergrenadier Div considered as motorized infantry division or Panzer div with infantry div combined?
+Kamal K. Hassan Panzergrenadiers are also called mechanized infantry, thus they are trained to work in combination with tanks, ideally they should be equipped with half tracks, so that they are protected against small arms fire. Panzer division already had an infantry regiment or brigade, the early ones used motorized infantry and the later ones mechanized infantry, yet I am not entirely sure if it wasn't mostly a naming thing, especially since Germany had a clear lack of half-tracks. So ideally, a Panzergrenadier division is not a motorized division nor a Panzer Division. Although I need to do some further reading to be entirely sure. Also different countries different rules.
+Kamal K. Hassan Ah sorry, I meant mechanized. Kept confusing mechanized with motorized. Cool!
+Kamal K. Hassan no problem. Panzergrenadier is one of the few words that is - in my opinion - sounding way better in German than in English.
+Kamal K. Hassan motorized divisions were mobile infantry divisions, later the German Army changed the name of motorized division to panzergrenadier division
Panzergrenadier divisions were supposed to have a tank regiment. The term Panzergrenadier was not adopted until 1942. Infantry in panzer divisions from 1937 onwards were known as Schützen Regiments Early war Motorised infantry divisions had a larger number of armoured cars but no tanks or APC's. Some elite units got some Stug III's but not many were built 1939-40. In the early part of the war APCs were in such short supply that each battalion in a panzer division only had one company mounted in APCs and some were equipped with Sdkfz 251's that didn't have any armour. The only German panzer division to mount all its infantry in armoured vehicles was Panzer Lehr in 1944- despite the huge numbers built, there were never enough to go around
What about brigades, as I understand brigades are larger than regiments. A brigade in my country has 2000-2500 men, so how much does a regiment have?
Andro A , nowadays brigades have replaced regiments by name and function. They are usually a combined arms unit with support and service units attached, and numbers around 3,000 to 4,000 men in most countries. The battalion is their largest sub-unit. This is in contrast to, example, a British WW1 division, which had two infantry brigades of two regiments each with a few battalions below that.
So how many men would be in a british WWI regiment?
+Aaron Venia So the 3 regiments of this division are now just organized into one brigade with 9 batallions?
I need no channel youtube! , No. Nowadays most countries use brigade in place of regiment. A us army Stryker brigade has 3 infantry battalions, one cavalry battalion (Stryker vehicles, not horses lol), one fires battalion (artillery), and support units like engineer company, intelligence company etc. It's about 4,200 personnel.
He did a video each on ww1 German and British divisions.
+Aaron Venia And where did regiments go? What point is there in leaving out levels of organization?
Wasn't the StuG III also part of infantry units?
not in 1940, see more on this in my video on the StuGs: (which is way better than this video) ua-cam.com/video/tFXZcC1xZnI/v-deo.html
What is with Anti Air units
none at that point
Any hoi4 players here?
Interesting how the Germany was so dependent on horse transportation, yet WW2 films very rarely show troops mounted on horseback
well, not horseback, because the horses were used for transportation and supplies, thus they were mostly behind the line. In Band of Brothers there is a scene with Webster were he screams at the Germans.
They did not have Anti Air battalions?
Butcher company sounds like the best one
My brain is not much tactical so please can you tell me no of artillery and anti tank pieces for those 17000 men
when you discussed the infantry regiment you showed the support gun company as having 180. adding all the numbers together it would be 3,020 instead of the 3, 000 as shown in the counter, why is this so? not trying to intentionally be rude or anything
rounding or maybe a mistake.
thank you for clarifying
How did German Infantry Divisions receive armored support?
I think this type of division is supossed to act mainly for defensive operation or acting as supporting element when they do offensive. When German need armored presence, they will just send the Panzer Division to the battle.
The German name for an infantry division was "infanteriedivision"? Wow, what are the odds of that?
How well did the non infantry sections of a division hold up in situations like Stalingrad? Did the non infantry divisions transition to combat roles?
Many German infantry divisions were pounded below 2,000 men.
Wait, isn't a brigade immediately below a Division?
+Napoleonheir1805 yes, but sometimes brigades are used and sometimes not. German Infantry Divisions of the 1. Welle to 4. Welle (First to Fourth wave, note that wave is used to categorize the equipment and personnel level not necessarily the time of creation) didn't use brigades. The same goes for German mountaineer division (Gebirgsdivision). Whereas a Panzer Division had a Panzer Brigade and a Schützen (Infantry) Brigade. (Source: Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand: Das Heer 1933-1945 - Band 1: Das Heer zu Kriegsbeginn. Anlage 5, p- 158-166) It seems that the brigade structure was used mainly for "mobile" units, the "light divisions" (leichte Division) and cavalry also used brigade structures.
Also according to Tessin the Inf. Div. 45 (restructuring of 1944) also had 3 regiments listed and no brigade. The USMC in ww2 also used no brigades in their divisions, if I didn't miss anything in checking the OOB.
+Napoleonheir1805
Typically in a modern army, a battalion is generally the largest combat unit consist of only a single arms: infantry, armor, artillery etc ... A brigade is usually the smallest combined arms unit that contains battalions of different arms; typically infantry and armor. Artillery is generally centrally controlled at the division level. Of course there are attempts to pushed combined arms tactics and organization down to lower levels, like the Brigade Combat Teams concept, which see artillery battalion controlled at brigade levels, and combined arms battalions which have infantry and armor companies.
Regiments are generally smaller than a brigade and is typically of a single arm as well. The reason is economics. Units of the same arms are cheaper to be trained, maintained, housed, and fed the same place and reported to the same HQ. Thus the Regiments. Different battalions of the same regiment might report to different brigade when organized into a battalion.
The USMC uses Regimental Combat Teams which are combined arms, integrated units. The Marines typically have better combined arms organization than the Army. The USMC's RCT is closer to a BCT in function than an actual regiment.
+Napoleonheir1805 in ww2 some times Brigades were not fielded. I know the US Army deactivated all its brigades and did not use them. Modern US Army now does not use regiments except in a few circumstances
Some people fall asleep counting sheep, I count organizational tables...
ONLY 2K SUBS WTF
+Elektrycerz spread the word, pretty new channel, started in 2016.
Military History Already sent links to 6 friends and shared on facebook :)
+Elektrycerz THANK YOU!!!
+Military History where are you from btw?
+Elektrycerz Austria, but living in Germany right now and you? Poland if google translate is correct.
I am mostly German and share and share the same last name with a general Theodore Endres the artillery general of the 212th infantry division i hope he isn't like my distant great uncle
...why ?!
I wanted ALL KNOWLEDGE !!!!
Why would a recon battalion have anti-tank guns?
The Germans tended to use recon units in combat more often than the Western Allies. As a result they were often quite heavily armed.
No cierran los numeros
your german is good
why has artillery regiment so much people.
1900 for 48 guns?
Jozek Sukic , horses, supply, forward observers etc. He did a video on 512 men for 12 15cm guns.
Hi there.
did the Germans call it Infanterie-Division, or Infanteriedivision, or are both acceptable
both
thanks
I like how he has a good german akzent. I think he is german